Apparatus and method for assessment of cancer margin

Abstract

An apparatus for inspecting a biological tissue uses a pH-sensitive coating material to determine whether the tissue is normal or cancerous. The coating material is placed in contact with the tissue to be excited by an excitation light. The coating material is arranged to provide a response signal indicative of the pH value of the tissue. Using a fiber bundle having a plurality of optical fibers forming a linear array or a two-dimensional array adjacent the coating material, the imaging of localized surface pH in the biological tissue can be achieved using the response signal through each of the optical fibers. The fiber bundle can be arranged as a probe to examine the tissue for providing direct mapping of the tumor margin via a display, so that a surgeon can inspect the tissue in real-time.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED PATENT APPLICATION[0001]This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 62 / 591,335, filed Nov. 28, 2017, whose entire content is hereby incorporated by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates generally to an apparatus and method for the assessment of cancer margin, and more specifically to the assessment during surgical procedures using a fiber optic pH sensing array with real-time visual mapping.BACKGROUND[0003]For many decades the reference method for the diagnosis of cancer has been histopathological examination of tissues using conventional microscopy. This process is known as Surgical Pathology. In Surgical Pathology, samples can be produced from surgical procedures (tumor resection), diagnostic biopsies or autopsies. These samples go through a process that includes dissection, fixation, and cutting of tissue into precisely thin slices which are stained for contrast and mounted onto glass slides. The sl...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The invention is about a device and method for checking if a tissue is normal or cancerous using a special coating that senses pH levels. This coating is applied to the tissue and then gets excited by a light. The device captures the response of the coating using a camera or a fiber bundle to create a visual representation of the tissue's pH levels. This technology can help improve the early detection of cancer and other abnormal tissue growth.

Problems solved by technology

Current surgical techniques to resect cancer are limited by the lack of a precise method to determine the boundary between normal and cancerous cells in, known as the ‘tumor margin’, in real time during surgical procedures.

As a result, surgeons often perform what is called cavity shaving, which can result in the removal of excessive amounts of healthy tissue.

Conversely, many patients do not have the entire tumor removed during the initial surgery and may need a follow up surgery to remove residual cancer tissue.

This can be traumatic to the cancer patient, adding stress, resulting in long-term detrimental effects on the patient outcome.

While these were used in early studies of tumor cell pH (see Gerweck, L. E., and Seetharaman, K., Cellular pH gradient in tumor versus normal tissue: Potential exploitation for the treatment of cancer, Cancer Res., 1996, 56, 1194-1198), they cannot accurately represent the spatial details of a heterogeneous pH environment typically associated with a tumor micro-environment.

This is a very time-consuming process, as for a giving tumor, there could be tens of samples taken, each of which must be dissected, fixed, and cut into very thin slices, which are then stained for contrast and mounted onto glass slides.

Standard histopathology of biopsy specimens is slow and labor-intensive.

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